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In a series of eight experiments on ESD (education for sustainable development) between 1991 and 2010, a range of different strategies were applied, e.g. the development of a new study program dedicated to sustainable technology, the integration of SD (sustainable development) in existing programs, the development of an ESD assessment tool (AISHE) together with a system for consultancy and certification, and a tool for the introduction of SD, consisting of a textbook for students and a range of online accessories. In his dissertation, Niko Roorda described and evaluated the various experiments. He compared them with the change processes that have taken place in the same two decades within his field of study: ‘HBO’, the Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences. The central philosophy behind all experiments was, to make use of these change processes for the implementation of ESD, in a process that can be described as ‘Sailing on the Winds of Change’, as the hypothesis was that this would render a successful strategy. Based on the evaluation of the various experiments, making use of a variety of models and theories about ESD, management and change, in the dissertation (Roorda, 2010) the conclusion is drawn that indeed ‘sailing on the winds of change’ is a fruitful approach, able of realizing a transformation of education towards ESD. The present paper is a shorter version of the dissertation and its main conclusions.

Although there have been calls for universities to report their Sustainability performance, currently a limited number of universities provide Sustainability reports, and an even lesser number base their reports on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Guidelines. This article assesses the sustainability reports from six European universities that follow the GRI guidelines. The comparison was made using the Graphical Assessment of Sustainability in Universities (GASU) tool, which allows a relatively easy comparison of Sustainability performance of reports. The results show that sustainability reporting in universities is still in its early stages (both in numbers of institutions reporting and in level of reporting) when compared to sustainability reporting in corporations. Universities could learn from the experiences of corporate sustainability reporting efforts, and incorporate them into their efforts as learning organisations to better align their systems with sustainability.

This article explores the contribution from different corporate voluntary efforts to sustainable development (SD). It aims to provide a brief overview of the most widely used tools, initiatives, and approaches that have been developed by and for corporations to address environmental and social concerns, within and outside the company. The paper also aims to provide, to a certain extent, a mapping of the efforts to show how they contribute to SD. Some of the efforts in the discussion include life cycle assessment, eco-design, ecoefficiency, cleaner production, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability reporting. This article aims to provide a guideline on some of the most common voluntary efforts by corporations to contribute to sustainability. The article shows that each effort has its advantages in regards to scope and focus, however it also has disadvantages when it comes to dealing with the complexity and broadness of SD. The paper shows that relying solely in one effort results in a narrow contribution to SD. It is proposed that in order to better address the concerns of SD and better contribute to making societies more sustainable, corporations should consider engaging with a combination of efforts.

Ireland has a small population of which approx. one third is concentrated in the Greater Dublin Area. Based on an objective of ‘Balanced Regional Development’ (BRD), the National Spatial Strategy (NSS, 2002) adopted a policy of eight Gateway Cities spread throughout the country. However, there are concerns that the NSS has not achieved its objectives because of lack of political commitment, because the gateways are too many and too small in size, and because of excessive zoning of land in smaller centres during a property boom period. It can be questioned whether the achievement of the BRD objective is realistic or even desirable as there is a great likelihood that urban development during the coming decades will mainly take place in the north eastern quadrant of the island (Dublin-Belfast). The concept of a ‘city state model’ based on concentration of urban population in one single city, can be considered ultimately a more sustainable model of spatial development for the country than the model of BRD. Provided that the urban development takes place in a polycentric urban form, problems of excessive congestion can be avoided while economies of scale can be achieved. Such a spatial development model would ultimately also result in a more sustainable development of cities and towns near the west coast of the country because these could develop ‘niche markets’ in a highly sensitive physical environment. The Dublin-Belfast linear city model provides a suitable basis for adopting such a spatial development concept for the years ahead.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce the sustainability focused Master Degree Program in International Business Management at the Faculty of Business Studies, Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Finland. As background information, there is a short overview to the sustainability and corporate social responsibility issues as a part of business studies at higher education institutions globally and especially at the Finnish professional higher education institutions (at the Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences). The paper is focused on presenting an international Master Degree Program that is focused on sustainable development and responsible business management in the international business context. The program aims 1) to create new business and find sustainability oriented business opportunities between Finland and emerging markets, and 2) to create sustainable growth on Asian and other emerging markets. In addition to the content, structure and teaching methods of the program, the paper gives some examples of previous sustainable focused research made by the students of the Master Program. These previous studies include issues such as use of renewable energy (especially business opportunities related to the wind but also other renewable energy sources), possibilities to decrease energy consumption (market potentials of eco-friendly cellulose insulation materials in India), and development of recycling and waste management systems, for example e-waste recycling and solid waste management in India and China.

As the world moves into an era of significant changes predicated by the challenge of sustainability, the future holds many questions, with serious consequences depending on the answers. Given the implications of these changes, the world’s design community needs to be constantly challenged to respond. To support conversations on what life will be like in 20 or 30 years and thus make the climate change debate more tangible, IDEO, a global design and innovation company, is hosting the Living Climate Change project and website. Moving the debate away from what we have to give up toward what we can create, the project is born from the conviction that design has a role to play in addressing the global issue of climate change. The scenarios IDEO developed (in movie clips) show how we may choose (or be forced) to abandon the old ways and change our behaviour. In partnership with IDEO, the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of the Delft University of Technology applied the Living Climate Change method in their education on sustainable design. Over a ten-week period, nine student teams were asked to develop non-linear future scenarios and present these in short movie clips. This paper presents the results of this activity, reflects on the methods used (expert involvement, storytelling, scenario building, movie making) and the learning that took place. The main conclusion is that the Living Climate Change activity turned out to be a valuable tool for the students, helping them come to terms with complex and interlinked topics and how these might change the world and the way we live..

Renewable material resources, consist of complex systems and parts. Their sub-systems and sub-sub-systems, have unique, specific, general and common properties. The character of the use that is made of these resources, depends on the availability of knowledge, experience, methods, tools, machines and infrastructure. First and above all, however, the starting point is to identify the prevailing concepts about resource use. Various terms can be mentioned, such as ‘full use of resource potential’, ‘total resource recovery’, ‘whole crop use’, ‘integrated usage’, and ‘cascading’ of resources. Once a part of a renewable resource has been extracted, the highest level of its resource potential should be maintained for as long as possible, and as much of it as feasible should serve the next and many other future processes, applications and products. A hierarchy of resource potential would be: natural functioning – use of functioning – use of total characteristics – use of shape and structure, the physical components – chemical properties – energetic properties – elementary properties. The various complexes of combined use potentials of a plant and of its parts, should be matched with the hierarchy of elementary needs that people wish to express. Thus, several levels of potential value creation can be distinguished. The paper argues that multi-purpose and multi-uses plants, trees and shrubs can be come an economic source of local and regional creation of sustainable value, well into the future.

Current design practices focus on eco-efficiency as the main approach in the field of sustainable product development. This approach mainly aims at improving existing products and services. Environmental product performance can be greatly improved using ecoefficiency but in many cases the improvements are incremental. Furthermore, the overall environmental impact the product causes is often not reducing, but rising instead. Strategies based on ‘learning from nature’ - Biomimicry, Natural Capitalism and Cradle to Cradle- offer opportunities to design in a radically different, goal-driven manner. These strategies, which are introduced in this paper as ‘nature-inspired design strategies’, provide pathways and principles aimed at developing designs that are in natural balance with their environment. Common principles include the use of materials in closed loops and using solar driven energy systems. Implementing these strategies is expected to have large impacts on the business processes, on the design of products, and on the type & amount of materials used. However, clear and tested methods for designers to apply these strategies in sustainable product development are lacking. This position paper explores and analyses nature-inspired design strategies from the perspective of sustainable product development. The main aim is to define the research work, to explore how these strategies can be applied in the design business for developing radically-sustainable products. Conclusions are drawn to facilitate the construction of the research design.

This paper explores energy transition pathways that are broadly considered successful in terms of technology development and implementation. From that, it aims to derive insights for better understanding transition processes and to improve management and governance methods for steering these processes. Recently, theoretical work on transition processes has evolved from static representations of uniform unilinear pathways (e.g. Rotmans, 2003; Geels, 2002) into the recognition that transition pathways are of a more diverse nature – still unilinear but not uniform (a.o. Geels and Schot, 2007, Berkhout et al., 2004). This work however, is so far strongly theoretical and hypothetical and asks for an empirical underpinning of the notions presented. This paper aims to make such an empirical contribution. It presents case study material on the successful development of wind power in Denmark and the implementation of hydropower in Sweden. The data show that these transitions are not unilinear. Instead, they change in character through time and therefore show to escape the static typologies presented in Geels and Schot (2007) and Berkhout et al. (2004). Consequently, the paper argues, appropriate and successful management methods also have to vary in time, parallel to the changes in transition characteristics.

In the Netherlands the energy consumption of new buildings is subject to performance based legislation, based on the Energy Performance Coefficient (EPC). The norm has been compulsory for almost 15 years, but only three surveys, one of them by the authors, were conducted to assess its effectiveness to reduce the actual energy use. The research described in this paper is based on the statistical analysis of several national databases and on the statistical processing of samples of dwellings representative for dwellings build after 1995. Although the consecutive strengthening’s had no significant effect, the introduction of the energy performance regulation itself had an effect on the actual energy use. A correlation was also found between the actual energy use and the expected energy use calculated according to the energy performance regulation. This expected energy use for heating represents only one component of the EPC calculations and its effect seems to be counteracted by the other factors used to calculate the EPC-level. In addition we found that the characteristics of the building and heating equipment together with household characteristics and occupant behaviour explain only up to 42% of the variation in energy use. This could indicate that most dwellings are not realized as they are designed on paper and that it could be more efficient to ensure a correct realization of the calculated performances than to tighten the EPC level further.

Among the diverse initiatives that can be developed in the search of sustainability, universities assume important roles either by disseminating ideas or by implementing real world solutions and applications. Considered as durable products, buildings represent one of the biggest elements in our society that causes impact in the natural ambient. Many times, existing buildings in universities’ campuses can be considered obsolete and needing renovation, at least when related to aspects that cause negative impact in the general performance of sustainable parameters, i.e., energy consumption, comfort, maintenance, quality of use, and so on. Within this picture, we present the case of the architecture course main building rehabilitation located in the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. The renovation project assumed the challenge of using natural climatic resources for obtaining good and comfortable ambient conditions with zero energy consumption. In this context, this article discusses the renovation procedures that were carried out and were guided by scientific conceptual bases and supported by computational simulations and on-the-site measurements. These initiatives allowed predict the building performances and aided the formulation of design alternatives. The paper also presents the conceptual and space characteristics of the conceived design and the computational simulations which were carried out with the use of the TRNSYS-15 software. Finally, the on-the-site measurements data as well as a comparative study between the predicted and obtained results - these last ones after the architectural renovation completion - are presented.

This case study investigates the efforts of Centric Austria International (CAI) to successfully set-up service units in China's less developed regions between 2008 and 2010 in order to promote implementation of Cleaner Production (CP) practices. Relying on the project’s capacity development approach, the authors examine the critical success factors that CAI faced on individual, organisational and network level. They reveal three interdependent factors and argue that it is not enough to simply transfer CP relevant capacities, but essential to introduce the notion of entrepreneurship, whilst taking into account the specific Chinese tradition of steering and coordinating society. Project developers have to consider the tradeoff and establish the right balance between these three success factors. The authors conclude that by respecting these factors, the project was able to promote local CP expertise and establish organizations that provide outside support for the local industries. Both were held responsible for the previous lag of CP implementation within these regions.

Rural regions in the Netherlands cope with the challenge of sustainable rural development in a complex network context. There is neither consensus on facts nor consensus on values about what is sustainable and what not. Literature suggests knowledge governance as a promising form of governance. It focuses on the coordinative power of knowledge production and dissemination, and on the development of joint facts and shared ideas. In this paper we critically explore what knowledge governance can contribute to processes of sustainable rural development. It addresses the questions of what characterizes knowledge governance, and what are the barriers to its functioning. For this we combine the concept of knowledge governance with literature on communities of practice, policy learning and boundary work. These concepts were used to analyze the case study of a selfgovernance and regional development project in the Northern Frisian Woodlands. In this project farmers, civil servants and researchers deliberately experimented with new knowledge arrangements. Information was obtained from interviews, observations and from participation in project management, providing advice and co-organizing of workshops. The paper concludes that knowledge governance can be successful under the following characteristics: a common identity between participants in communities of practice, the inclusion of boundary workers, the willingness of actors to change routines and consider new ideas, and a certain distance between communities of practices and existing governance networks.

Timber and wood based materials like plywood have been used for packaging from a long time. As a normal practice the used packaging timber in India is used for repacking, as firewood and low-end interior decoration purpose. Sustainable eco-efficient repurposing of used packaging timber forms the basis for „DESIGN THINKING FOR RE-PURPOSING USED PACKAGING TIMBER‟. Used packaging timber from industries and warehouses is obtained by scrap dealers and sorted according to material, size, quality and quantity. The scrap dealers remove nails and screws and the material is sold in retail by weight to the user. Design Circle, Bangalore, India have been re-purposing used packaging timber and plywood from 2004 onwards. The packaging timber from scrap dealers is processed further to suit different product categories like toys, educational products, lifestyle accessories, physiotherapy products, play and furniture using regular woodworking techniques. Value addition to the material is done by glue lamination transforming the packaging timber into solid timber sections with expensive feel and look. The constrained availability of the raw material calls for design of low quantity and high quality production. The paper presents product examples for different sections of the pyramid, designed and executed at design circle, Bangalore. The paper points the constraints, fresh avenues, sustainable practices in raw material procurement and in product design. The paper emphasizes the importance of re-purposing of a renewable, sustainable, material like timber after serving its originally intended purpose.

Environmental labels (also known as „Green labels‟ or eco-labels) are applied to a wide range of products. These labels aim to inform consumers about the environmental credentials of the product, ultimately to influence purchasing decisions. Labels are generally applied to the finalised design at the marketing stage. Because industrial designers are rarely involved in this process it is unclear whether they are aware of the criteria required for various labels or the impacts their design decisions have from a labelling perspective. This paper presents ongoing PhD research into the understanding that industrial designers have of environmental labels and whether labels influence design decisions. A review of both organised labelling schemes and independent labels currently used in the UK uncovered a shortage of resources providing sufficient relevant information for industrial designers. The information available appeared to be aimed at marketing practitioners and tended to be either too basic with a few short lines outlining what the label represents or too detailed, giving the awarding criteria for each label. There was little information about the impact of design decisions or even which labels apply to specific products. The key questions were whether industrial designers consider environmental labelling criteria during their design process and if this results in environmentally sensitive products with maximum marketing potential. This paper presents the initial findings from an online survey and a number of semi-structured interviews with UK industrial designers, designed to investigate their relationship with labels. Conclusions regarding increasing understanding and use of environmental labels are given.

Like the notion of social impacts in Sustainable Development, social sustainability in design is a complex, contradictory and challenging area. Although not clearly defined, it is often where all the vague and immeasurable elements of Sustainable Design are placed. Addressing the balance of sustainability to include societal and human concerns is seen as a difficult, but necessary task which can lead to an increase in social capital, social cohesion and collaboration across geographical and educational boundaries (Findeli 2008). Encouraging and facilitating collaboration between students in an educational setting is particularly challenging as students’ struggle to move past what they know and have learnt in their own cultural settings. Individual student thinking is often rooted in past educational experiences with students getting little exposure to diversities of practice (social and professional) or failing to become engaged in any real cross cultural dialogue. As in every field, designers must learn to co-operate across disciplines and borders. Both knowledge share and collaborative practice serve to open these communication channels and create a community of informed and informative professionals. This paper explores the role international collaborative projects can play in introducing social sustainability into design education. The paper begins by grounding these projects in current theory surrounding social sustainability and educational practices. Subsequently a brief outline of the projects is provided (conducted between students from Universities in New Zealand, Ireland and Chile) and the paper continues to explain the logistics of planning and implementing such projects. The findings from this study suggest that involving design students in international collaborative work encourages reflection, compromise and critical thinking. However, not withstanding the difficulties and realities involved; the conversations, conflicts and compromises that occur, and the unforeseen happenings that can thwart and enhance the experience. The paper concludes by reflecting on the experience of both students and tutors and the impact the project has on their subsequent practice.

The speed and complexity of worldwide change are taxing every institution and complicating processes and functions. We need to understand cities as complex adaptive systems and question how to manage change. 1) The complexity of social cultural-, ecological and economic systems, science and technology as the driving forces for urban development makes it necessary to abandon the perception of a global steady state. Instead, managing these complex coevolving systems and interdependencies for sustainability, requires the ability to cope with, adapt to and shape cities without losing options for future development. 2) Value is mostly defined narrowly in terms of financial calculus. Successful urban development requires a new ethical value based economy. It will imply behavior change to meet value-based goals. Combining social and ethical values with economic accounting defines our future cities. Opposite and challenging the conservatism of the past ("checks and balances" cerebral, cognitive, rational, the sum of market forces, etc). For sustainable urban development there is one goal (telos), which does not result in a static state of goal achievement. That goal is change itself. Therefore the city is an interconnected multifaceted continuous changing entity: an economic structure –a society, an artifact, an ecosystem, a polis, a culture defined as the things we find important, beliefs and habits. Long term effects can only be secured if city making is adapting changeability, ethical founded, and becoming places of solidarity, of passion and compassion. Adding value economically and reinforce ethical values simultaneously.

Industrial designers are used to applying their skills to modify or change user’s behaviour, inducing attributes to the product to empower/inhibit the use into a certain direction (e.g. scripts). These approaches might bring the desired results, and modify behaviour to one that favors sustainability. Such approaches, however, have a major defect, because they diminish the agency of the user. As a result they cannot help the user to shift to a discursive level and actively start thinking about energy. This paper presents a qualitative study of 8 Dutch households, whose occupants used a clipon energy-meter for a month and made significant changes to their practices in order to be more environmentally responsible. The primary aim of the study was to explore how energy feedback and social learning affect people’s understanding, attitudes and behaviour. A participatory approach followed applying conventional ethnographic methods in order to gain insights on what people “say, think, do and know” about energy consumption in their day-to-day practices. The meters had a dramatic effect on the participants’ understanding and awareness of the electricity they use and showed conscious changes in how the participants take showers, cook, wash and so on. Nonetheless, the meter’s novelty effect faded soon. In probes and focus groups the participants indicated the need to feel more in control of their energy usage and the will to collaborate with others to share knowledge and ideas. Based on these findings a concept of social software that complements the smart meters is proposed.

Designers of maritime container terminals often experience difficulties in defining an acceptable degree of moored ship motions at the terminal to allow efficient (un)loading of container vessels. PIANC has published criteria for the principal movements of certain types of moored ships in harbours in relation to (un)loading efficiency (PIANC, 1995). However, it is not specified whether these criteria represent average, significant or maximum motions, they are indicated as “peak-peak” motions. It is believed that the specified criteria for container vessels are not strict enough. A number of different motion criteria are presently in use to determine the mooring of container vessels with 100% efficiency of (un)loading operations. As a result, a new PIANC Working Group 52 has been established in 2006 to produce new guidelines by 2011. The paper provides an overview of the issues at stake. Surge is the principal motion of interest for (un)loading efficiency, due to the slow motion of the ship-to-shore crane in the direction along the quay. Loading efficiencies have been computed using an extensive series of numerical simulation of the motions of a moored container vessel, as function of container placing tolerances. The (un)loading efficiency is computed using a surge motion time-series analysis where the exceedance of the container placing tolerance criteria is considered to be delay time. Results are presented for a container placing tolerance of 0.1, 0.2 m and 0.3 m and a simultaneous surge motion velocity criterion of 0.05 m/s, for a range of (lowfrequency) peak periods of a typical surge motion spectrum of a moored container vessel. For a terminal design engineer, both the maximum allowable significant ship motions as illustrated here and the allowable frequency of exceedance {or annual (un)loading downtime} need to be considered. This depends on the local wave climate and the intensity of use of the terminal.

This paper presents the new report n°106 of PIANC InCom WG29 on Innovations in Navigation Lock Design, published by PIANC in August 2009, as well as some additional contributions on lock gates (gate contact technology). The paper highlights the main objectives and issues of his PIANC report with a specific emphasis on gates and specifically on the contact aspects. Locks are key structures for the development of the navigation in canals and in natural rivers where weirs regulate water levels to enable navigation. They may also be strategic infrastructure for port development. The core of this report has three major parts. The first part presents an exhaustive list of design goals associated with locks. This section is particularly important for decision makers who have to launch a new project. The second part reviews the design principles that must be considered by designers. This section is methodologically oriented. The third part is technically oriented. All main technical aspects (hydraulics, structures, foundations, including computational aspects, etc.) are reviewed, focussing on changes and innovations occurring since 1986. Perspectives and trends for the future are also listed. When appropriate, recommendations are listed. It is impossible to give the details of all lock innovation areas in this paper. As an example, the lock gates and, in particular, the modern views on their contact issues have been chosen. These new solutions are welcome to limit the maintenance and to extend the service life of lock gates.